1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multilayer ceramic capacitor and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
As examples of electronic components using a ceramic material there may be provided a capacitor, an inductor, a piezoelectric element, a varistor, a thermistor, and the like.
Among these ceramic electronic components, a multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) has a small size and high capacity, and is easily mounted.
The multilayer ceramic capacitor, a condenser having a chip shape, may be installed in circuit boards of various electronic products including a display device such as a liquid crystal display (LCD), a plasma display panel (PDP), or the like, a computer, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a cellular phone, and the like, to be charged with or discharge electricity.
A multilayer ceramic capacitor may include a plurality of stacked dielectric layers, internal electrodes disposed to face each other, having the dielectric layer interposed therebetween, and external electrodes electrically connected to the internal electrodes.
Recently, as electronic products have been gradually miniaturized, miniaturization and ultrahigh capacitance of multilayer ceramic capacitors used in the electronic products has been required.
Therefore, a ceramic capacitor in which thicknesses of the dielectric layer and the internal electrode are reduced for miniaturization of the product and the number of stacked dielectric layers is increased for ultra high capacitance has been manufactured, but there is a limitation in increasing the capacitance of the product with only this configuration.
Meanwhile, a multilayer ceramic capacitor in which internal electrodes are exposed to the same surface (a lower surface) such that the lower surface of the capacitor may be a mounting surface has been disclosed.
However, in the multilayer ceramic capacitor according to the related art, the internal electrodes are disposed perpendicularly to the mounting surface, such that it may be difficult to use the capacitor in the case in which the capacitor needs to be mounted in such a manner that internal electrodes are horizontally disposed with respect to the mounting surface.
The following Related Art Documents 1 and 2 had disclosed a structure in which lead portions of first and second internal electrodes are exposed through end portions of dielectric layers and first and second external electrodes are formed on both ends of a ceramic body so as to be electrically connected to the lead portions of the first and second internal electrodes.